Tomorrow is Today

NC State Debuts Remote-Controlled Cyborg Cockroach

A team [at NC State] has developed an electronic interface that allows them to remotely control cockroaches along fairly precise paths…

The idea here is to find a way to pilot sensor laden insects into places humans wouldn’t want to go, like a chemical contamination site or a collapsed building. By piggybacking on the cockroach’s evolutionarily-tested physiology, robotics researchers can skip the difficult step of building a reliable robotic body to carry their sensor loads. But in order for this to work, of course, users have to be able to control the cockroaches.

Doing so isn’t necessarily easy, but the NC State team has found a way to do so that also taps the cockroaches natural sensory pathways to stimulate certain movements. The team wired a 0.7-gram micro-controller that is fitted to the roach’s back… to its antennae and cerci. The cerci is an organ on the roaches abdomen that senses movement in the air and gives the roach a sense that something is approaching from behind, prompting it to move forward. The antennae sense obstacles in front of the roach and spur it to turn right or left to avoid the physical impediment. By sending small electrical impulses to these organs, the researchers have demonstrated that they can both prompt their “biobotic” roaches to scurry forward and steer them along a curved path.

(via Video: Cyborg Cockroach Scurries Along a Precise, Curved Path | Popular Science)